Imperial Metals has secured a permit from the provincial government to build its Red Chris copper and gold mine south of Dease Lake, drawing the ire of an area First Nation.
The Tahltan First Nation has vowed to examine every option to fight the project.
Tahltan Central Council President Annita McPhee said the First Nation is still waiting for answers to environmental, cultural, and rights and title concerns raised by construction of the open pit operation.
She pointed to a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that found the federal government side-stepped a duty to prepare an environmental assessment, although a monitoring committee will be established to provide a forum to review and address environmental concerns.
"Our people will be here, living on this land, long after this mine closes," McPhee said. "Decisions like this don't appropriately take our interests into account, undermine our trust in the province and make it extremely difficult to work together."
The mine has been ranked the 13th largest copper and gold deposit in the world, according to a CIBC World Markets survey. Building the mine is expected to cost $444 million, create 250 full-time jobs and yield 276 million tonnes of copper and gold over 28 years. The mine's material will be shipped overseas through Stewart.
At the current prices for copper and gold, company officials have said it will take less than two years to pay back the project's capital cost, while the base case for the project calls for a four-and-a-half-year payback.
The mine's development remains contingent on construction of the Northwest Transmission Line, and work on that project is expected to begin this summer and be completed by 2014.
"We are privileged to be developing the world-class Red Chris deposit, together with a highly capable group of First Nations contractors, local businesses and individuals resident in our northern communities that have been hardest hit by declines in the forest industry," Imperial Metals board chair Pierre Lebel said.
Imperial Metals also operates the Mount Polley copper and gold mine near Williams Lake and the Huckleberry copper mine near Houston.
